1. Memorial Annotation of Poem Learning Intention: I can show my analysis of a poem through annotation of the text

2. Thinking About The Poem

3. Before reading: -How does one deal with death of a loved one? - How does an artist, writer or musician deal with the Death of a loved on? - What do you think will be the memorial for MacCaig?

4. Background Information This poem is am elegy - a lament for the dead, for a beloved person in MacCaig’s life. It deals with the sense of loss that pervades every aspect of his life.

5. Background Information Memorial is a sad and beautiful poem Instead the process of her dying stays with him constantly: the opening states, Everywhere she dies and in the final stanza, she can’t stop dying. MacCaig’s poetry is often characterised by its lightness of touch, his playful use of language, particularly metaphor – but always to razor-sharp effect. Here, he retains razor-sharpness in his use of metaphor, but the playful, light touch is entirely absent. Instead he is immersed in the intolerable distance of death, painfully conscious of its ugliness, and painfully conscious too of the all pervading absence of his dear one. MacCaig was an atheist. As such, in the face of death, there were no easy comforts for him of promises of life or resurrection beyond the grave. For him death presented an awful finality.

6. Structure  This poem is written in free verse  The themes and central ideas are readily accessible through conversational style and the simple language.  Written from a first person stance in the past tense,  The poem is divided by stanzas into three main sections.  In the first stanza, the speaker introduces the subject of his meditation, the death of a loved one.  In the second he reflects and explores the impact of this painful experience while  In the third he reaches a conclusion of by reiterating the assertion made in the first line of her death being everywhere, ever present.  The fluidity and looseness of the structure also helps to reinforce the key message of the poem. Death of a loved one itself represents a formlessness, a loss of structure

7. Theme  The central theme of the poem is the sense of unending grief that is felt when someone we love dies.  MacCaig creates a tone which is almost nihilistic and utterly hopeless in its despairingly bleak outlook.  Nevertheless, there is an occasional glimpse of optimism and beauty contained within the image of the crocus, which is “never carved more gently than in the way her dying shapes my mind.”  This seems to imply one of the abiding effects of his grief is that it will forever and indelibly continue to shape and impact on his creative work.

8. The Poem as a whole Free Verse – echoes the way death lacks structure Structure 1)Introduction 2)Reflection 3)Conclusion Point of View First Person – emotions as genuine Themes Death/Grief Tone - Hopeless

9. Stanza One Part 1 Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies. No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain but has her death in it.

10. Stanza One Part 1 Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies. No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain but has her death in it. These statements are simple, direct and matter of fact. Repetition reinforces idea of everywhere. She – lacks identity/ ambiguous Inversion Focuses attention on speaker. Helps to understand first statement Poet cannot escape the death of his loved one. Closeness of pronouns I and she show close relationship

11. Stanza One Part 1 Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies. No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain but has her death in it. No” – Emphasising the negatives (Repetition). There follows a patterned list of places where her death, for him, is to be found: “No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain.” Listing – building up to a climax Syllables increase as line goes on Sunrise, city square, beautiful mountain – typical romantic venues (LOOKING AT PICTURES?) Lurking – present tense Lurking – sneaking up on him, waiting to pounce (the grief)

12. Stanza One Part 1 Everywhere she dies. Everywhere I go she dies. No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain but has her death in it. But – enjambment – emphasis Her – again, lacks identity Full stop - finality

13. Stanza One Part 2 The silence of her dying sounds through the carousel of language, it's a web on which laughter stitches itself. The poet employs paradox in the line “the silence of her dying sounds through the carousel of language”; this works in the same way as the phrase “a deafening silence” – a silence so intense it makes an impact in the way a loud noise would. Silence…sounds – alliteration (sibilance) Dying – present tense again Reliving the death Silence…sounds – alliteration (sibilance) In this metaphor language is compared to something light- hearted and frivolous, CONTRAST to the silence On it, “laughter” is doomed to become stuck – it “stitches itself”. Web – caught up in it but also not part of it

14. Stanza One Part 3 How can my hand clasp another's when between them is that thick death, that intolerable distance? MacCaig finishes the stanza on a deeply pessimistic note with a rhetorical question, asking how his hand can “clasp another's” while grieving for someone Clasp – tight grip / holding onto person. Link to Visiting Hour Intolerable – can’t bear the separation and yet he has to Thick death – metaphor (Grief is like a fog that we cannot get through) Another’s – holding hands / shaking hands / thoughts of future love? Use of rhetorical question – idea of being isolated

15. Stanza Two Part 1 She grieves for my grief. Dying, she tells me that bird dives from the sun, that fish leaps into it. The opening of this stanza involves a subversion of the usual order by asserting “She grieves for my grief”. She grieves – feelings of love / concern / sympathy towards the poet. Dying – present tense Nature imagery – connotations of natural order / creates a sense of calmness These images are, in their way, things of beauty in their constructs of language. Circle of life and acceptance of death – the way she wants the poet to.

16. Stanza Two Part 2 No crocus is carved more gently than the way her dying shapes my mind. Crocus…carved – alliteration Carved – care and attention – long process Crocus symbol of hope and renewal MacCaig acknowledges this in the comparison of the way his mind is shaped by them to the way a crocus is “carved” or shaped by nature.

17. Stanza Two Part 3 – But I hear, too, the other words, black words that make the sound of soundlessness, that name the nowhere she is continuously going into. Use of dash Hear – links back to the ideas of sounds What follows is a metaphorical image of him hearing “other words, black words” which whisper to him of the horror of the oblivion of the grave. This is conveyed in a number of ways: again by a paradox, specifically the oxymoronic “sound of soundlessness”, which echoes the earlier paradox in stanza one. Black – image of death Link to VH Words – condolences and sympathies from friends and well-wishers Into – vague / ambiguous. Connotations of death

18. Stanza Three Ever since she died she can't stop dying. She makes me her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece, a true fiction of the ugliness of death. I am her sad music. Back in the present moment, after loved one’s death Died – end of line EMPHASIS She makes me – his grief is her fault / feelings of anger and denial Blunt We realise it is within the poet’s consciousness that she “can’t stop dying”– his psyche is perpetually tortured by this overwhelming experience. An elegy is song or poem associated with death, emphasising that his grief is so raw, so profound and all- consuming, - he has become a physical embodiment of a lament. Masterpiece – strength of grief / connotations of greatness / he is the ultimate example of grief The term “masterpiece” is used satirically to convey how successful his transformation into a mascot for death, despair and despondency has been.

19. Stanza Three Ever since she died she can't stop dying. She makes me her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece, a true fiction of the ugliness of death. I am her sad music. This hopelessly pessimistic note again emphasises the ceaseless, all- encompassing nature of the grief. Oxymoron – Paradox. Death still feels slightly unreal to him. Ugliness – this image doesn’t fit in with the rest of the poem Connotations of dying with an illness Sentence on its own Relates again to the ideas of sound Poet accepting of sound again? Poet’s feelings - Acceptance